Hyderabad: IBM and the Telangana State government on Monday announced a collaboration to provide curated online courses for the State’s students that will enhance their technical and professional skills. IBM will work with Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge (TASK) to offer ‘Open P-Tech’, a free digital education platform focused on emerging technologies and professional development skills, for 30,000 students over a period of one year across engineering, degree, and polytechnic courses.
Apart from providing access, IBM and its training partners will also train college teachers in using the platform, so that they can guide their students and help onboard them onto the platform and mentor students to learn these skills that will enhance their readiness for their future careers and the workplace.
Under this partnership, IBM will offer its entire catalog of Open P-Tech courses in emerging technologies like cybersecurity, blockchain, AI and machine learning, cloud, internet of things, along with professional skills, like design thinking to learners between 18 to 22 years for free.
“Telangana’s focus is on developing a good ecosystem for emerging technologies. We have established a Blockchain District and have also declared 2020 as the Year of AI. Young minds who are trained in these technologies will find good job prospects in our State,” said, Jayesh Ranjan, principal secretary, Department of ITE&C, Industries & Commerce.
TASK CEO Shrikant Sinha said, “We are glad to collaborate with IBM for the Open P-Tech program. The technological strength of IBM gives us confidence that the 30,000 students enrolling for these courses will greatly benefit from them.”
IBM’s Open P-Tech, a free digital education platform, focused on emerging technologies and professional development skills, was launched in India in March 2020. The platform equips learners and educators with foundational technology competencies, along with workplace skills.
Under the partnership, the Open P-Tech platform will offer courses to develop soft skills, interpersonal skills, problem-solving — a set of 11 key skills that are generally not available in a college curriculum, but are high in demand and are valued in the job market. Open P-Tech is now available to students and teachers worldwide. Register here: https://open.ptech.org